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Long before the days of affluent beauty influencers, Madam C.J. Walker became known as America’s first self-made female millionaire thanks to her homemade line of hair care products for Black women.

The cosmetic queen’s scalp preparations, lotions, iron combs and pomades were among the first of their kind, at a time when most hair products for Black women were manufactured by white businesses. A natural entrepreneur, Walker would later employ her own “beauty culturalists” to sell her products, causing business to skyrocket. Keep in mind, this model preceded the rise of Mary Kay.

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Even after her death, the Walker name was synonymous with self-care. A’Lelia Walker, C.J.’s only child, transformed her mother’s Manhattan townhouse into a salon for members of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s.

Now, Walker’s legacy gets further immortalized by getting her very own Barbie doll.

Madam C.J. Walker.

Walker might have been a savvy businesswoman, but she was also a philanthropist, activist and advocate. She helped other Black women become more financially secure by establishing clubs for her employees and would offer bonuses to those who gave back to their community.

A’Lelia Bundles, Walker’s great-great-granddaughter and official biographer, worked extensively with Barbie designer Carlyle Nuera to help bring the doll to life in an authentic way, according to USA Today.

Wearing royal purple and turquoise—two of Walker’s favorite colors—the signature doll also comes with a very important accessory: a historically accurate miniature version of “Madam C.J. Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower,” a scalp conditioning and healing formula that Walker claimed had been revealed to her in a dream. Walker first sought out hair care solutions after suffering from hair loss herself.

“We wanted to focus on the fact that she manufactured hair care products and to make the young people and the adults who love it think about her being a businesswoman,” Bundles told USA Today.

The Madam C.J. Walker Barbie is part of Mattel’s “Inspiring Women Series,” a line that “pays tribute to incredible heroines of their time; courageous women who took risks, changed rules and paved the way for generations of girls to dream bigger than ever before.” She’ll be joining the likes of Rosa Parks, Ella Fitzgerald and Maya Angelou. Each doll comes with a historical photo along with a short biography explaining how these female role models helped change the world.

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Bundles shared the doll’s significance in an interview with NPR.

“I hope that when little girls and little boys pick up the doll, that they will see something that’s a little different than just a generic doll … as an entrepreneur and as a boss and as a philanthropist and a patron of the arts and somebody who cared about social justice, that they will perhaps see themselves and take one of those narratives,” she said.

Bundles continued, “It means a lot that a child can look at a doll, can have a doll that looks like them … so that they know that they’re part of the world.”

Walker’s Barbie is available for purchase on Mattel, Walmart and Amazon for $35.

Also, yes, her hair care line still exists.

In an era of movie franchises that never end, Jordan Peele is a rarity: an idiosyncratic director who gets Hollywood money to make one-off genre movies (though even he’ll admit he’s no John Carpenter). Get Out didn’t need a follow-up; nor did Us. Same with his third outing, Nope, his longest and most ambitious work yet. But in a new interview with The New York Times, the sketch comedy god-turned-filmmaker teased that we might not have seen the last from the world of Nope.

In the interview, NYT’s Mekado Murphy asked Peele what’s up with an obscure Nope detail caught by Internet snoops: a character listed on the IMDb as “Nobody” who was cut from the film. At first Peele was tantalizingly vague, saying only, “People are doing a lot of interesting detective work, is what’s going on.”

He then elaborated, sort of. “The story of that character has yet to be told, I can tell you that,” Peele said. “Which is another frustrating way of saying, I’m glad people are paying attention. I do think they will get more answers on some of these things in the future. We’re not over telling all of these stories.”

While the story of Nope is more or less resolved, there’s a lot going on in its sprawling 130 minutes. Peele could easily return to the world from the POV of another character, even one who we never see because they didn’t make the final cut. But does he mean a sequel? A spin-off? A side-quel, telling a different story from around the same period? Peele is one of the few filmmakers in contemporary Hollywood who can do whatever he damn well wants, and if Peele wants to stick around in the Nope-verse a bit longer, then that’s what he can do.

(Via NYT)

MIA returned earlier this year, announcing her long-awaited sixth studio album Mata, which is set to follow up 2016’s AIM. The musician has already unveiled the singles “The One” and “Popular” so far, building up hype for the record. However, today she shared some special but complicated news on her Instagram Story.

“Coming soon I promise,” she wrote over a colorful background with music playing. “I had to wait 2 years for a Doja Cat verse… then a Nicki one… then a…. never mind if Mata isn’t out Sept I will leak it myself.”

This would not be the first time that MIA threatened to leak her own music. Her relationship with her label Interscope is rarely tame; AIM was largely overlooked when it came to critical attention in the mainstream, and that was partially due to a number of legal and internal issues involving Interscope. Mata, however, will mark the first MIA album released via her new partnership with Island Records, following her long-standing history with Interscope and XL Recordings.

MIA is also known for using social media to provoke. In March of 2020, she wrote on Twitter, “If I have to choose the vaccine or chip I’m gonna choose death,” she wrote. “Yeah in America they made me vacinate my child before the school admission. It was the hardest thing.”

Pi’erre Bourne is rising. The producer is prepping for the release of Good Movie and is heading out on a big tour soon. He’s so famous that Jamie Foxx’s kids are fans, and they don’t believe that his producer tag is actually an old sample of Foxx’s voice.

“I thought that was great, man,” Foxx said when asked in an interview what he thought of the producer tag sample. “My kids… I’m always trying to impress my daughter. She’s 13 and with her friends and I’m like, ‘Listen, that’s me saying that,’ and she’s like ‘Dad, that ain’t you.’ Because, you know, she’s too young to have seen that show when it was out.”

The iconic tag, if you don’t know, comes from an episode of The Jamie Foxx Show and it consists of Foxx shouting, “Yo Pierre, you wanna come out here?” and then making the hilarious sound of a door creaking.

Good Movie is set to arrive in just a few days, and it follows up a joint album with Juicy J in June and reuniting with Lil Uzi Vert on his album The Life Of Pi’erre 5 last year. Last week, the rapper unveiled the single “Good Movie” which kept fans eager to hear the rest of the album.

The fall movie season is upon us, meaning lots of Oscar talk and Oscar bait and serious movies meant to ease moviegoers off brainless summer fare. And then there’s My Son Hunter. Distributed by the dodgy far right outlet Breitbart, it’s an almost certainly questionable look at the president’s son, who has long been a scourge of the GOP, despite not being an elected official. Itsa ridiculous trailer, which makes it look like an Asylum version of The Wolf of Wall Street, was met with heaps of derision. But at least it has some fans: Russian propagandists.

As per The Daily Beast, Russian state media has gone all-in on the movie, which stars fallen Mandalorian supporting player Gina Carano and was directed by a Bond villain. On the aggressor nation’s version of 60 Minutes, host Evgeny Popov breathless hyped the trailer, and hoped that it would do more than simply make a lot of money.

“We’re waiting for the premiere and hoping for a big success in the United States, to bring our beloved Trump back into power,” Popov told viewers.

Will the movie — which looks like it dramatizes claims of dubious veracity, and which depicts Joe Biden (played by former Dynasty star John James) as a menacing mob-like figure who worries about his son’s laptop ruining his “erection” — set the American box office ablaze? Or will it merely scrape together a couple bucks, like a thoroughly discredited Dinesh D’Souza “documentary”? Or will it do what the potentially, finally doomed Trump wants and somehow reinstate him in the White House?

Whatever happens, it’s yet another case of Russia using far right media to attack America. First they used Tucker Carlson, now they’re seizing upon a movie that some critics say accidentally makes Hunter Biden look really cool.

Dr. Oz wants to win a vacating Senate seat in Pennsylvania so badly he even moved across state lines. But if he does nab it, it will only be after enduring untold mockery from his opponent, John Fetterman. For months, the Keystone State’s sitting lieutenant governor has been relentlessly and creatively trolling the former TV quack. Oz has struggled to return in kind. And when he has, things have gotten weird and ugly.

Last week, the Oz campaign tried to clap back at the backlash over a bizarre old video he recorded, in which he tried to slam Biden for inflation-induced prices by supermarket-shopping for “crudité.” Instead it backfired after a campaign staffer cracked that Fetterman wouldn’t have suffered the stroke he had in May if he “had ever eaten a vegetable in his life.”

Not only was it cruel, but Oz is a licensed physician who’s supposed not supposed to make jokes about people’s health. But during a new interview on Pittsburgh radio station KDKA, he tried to awkwardly make things right, in part by seeming to throw his staffers under the bus.

“The campaigns are saying lots of things, both of them,” Oz said when asked about the Fetterman attacks. “My position is — I can only speak to what I’m saying — is that John Fetterman should be allowed to recover fully. And I will support his ability, as someone who is going through a difficult time, to get ready.”

Oz claimed he had “tremendous empathy” for his opponent’s health issues, saying he’s “a physician first.” He also vented about Fetterman not yet agreeing to a debate, probably because he’s still recovering from a stroke from almost four months ago.

“I have no idea if he’s recovered. He’s told us nothing,” Oz said. “And its actually up to him to decide when he’s comfortable sharing with that.”

Will this cause friction at Oz’s campaign headquarters? Possibly! But things are almost certainly already uncomfortable over there on account of Oz trailing behind his opponent. Whatever the case, some weren’t buying Oz’s attempt to distance himself from what’s being said in his name by people he employs. Rebecca Katz, a strategist with Oz’s campaign, certainly wasn’t, tweeting that he should “either stand by the sh*tty things this campaign is saying on your behalf or denounce it.”

(Via The Philadelphia Inquirer)

The last big domino left to fall in the 2022 NBA offseason is Donovan Mitchell being trades, as the Utah Jazz look to fully enter a rebuild after sending Rudy Gobert to Minnesota for a massive haul of picks earlier this summer.

The Knicks have long been considered the frontrunners — and really the only team we’ve heard of with considerable interest in Mitchell — with many operating on the belief it’s a matter of when, not if, Mitchell is playing his home games at Madison Square Garden. However, on Tuesday, the Knicks announced a new four-year extension worth north of $100 million for RJ Barrett, which seemed to complicate matters and raised plenty of eyebrows around the league.

While Barrett’s extension changes the calculus given the poison pill provision, according to Shams Charania, it doesn’t preclude him from still being part of a trade package that nets Mitchell. The bigger problem is the Knicks not meeting the Jazz’s asking price in offers where Barrett is the focal point, with Charania bringing word that the Jazz rejected the latest offer from New York of Barrett and a pair of unprotected firsts for Mitchell.

Given that we’ve heard the Jazz are asking for a similar draft pick haul as what they got from the Wolves who sent five first rounders to Utah for Gobert, this certainly indicates that there’s still a wide gulf between what the Knicks are offering and the Jazz are requesting. With a month left until camp, there’s no reason for either party to budge much on their offer/demand, but we seem headed for a who blinks first scenario in terms of offering up a compromise position that’s somewhere between this reported offer and the full asking price.

Donald Trump took over the Republican Party by being, for lack of a better word, mean. He taunted his fellow GOP opponents. He gave people unflattering nicknames, usually with alliteration or rhymes (or both). He called Ted Cruz’s wife “ugly” and accused his dad of assassinating JFK. But as with any bully, it appears Trump can’t really take it when the tables are turned.

On Tuesday, the former president unleashed a torrent of posts (or “truths”) on Truth Social. It was a throw-everything-at-the-wall marathon. He shared memes of, shall we say, dubious accuracy. He spread lies about voter fraud. In one post, he suggested his supporters lay down their lives for him. Buried in the avalanche was one a moment of reflection.

“Why are people so mean?” Trump wrote. It’s not clear what he was specifically referring to. Perhaps all the people whose lives have he’s negatively impacted, who aren’t exactly unhappy that he’s not doing well? It’s also not clear if he was even remotely aware of his reputation, a thousand times earned, of being cruel and bitchy to anyone who isn’t serving his immediate interests. Perhaps we’re witnessing a deeply broken man entering a fugue state as his legal, financial, and possibly presidential prospects potentially go up in smoke.

At least he has somewhere to vent. He was kicked off his favorite social media shortly after helping inspire a violent attack on the Capitol, and it took him over a year to build a rinky-dink clone of it. But that, too, may be coming to an end. The service is reportedly up to its ears in debt, and it’s still isn’t available on Android thanks to all the violent threats that keep cropping up on there. Where will Trump go to blow off steam when Truth Social has gone the way of Trump Steaks and Trump’s board game?

The US Open is always a big deal for tennis fans as the final Grand Slam tournament of the year, but this year, it’s extra special, as it is superstar Serena Williams’ final tournament before she retires at the age of 40. On Monday, she played her first match of the tournament against Danka Kovinić with a surfeit of celebrity supporters such as Anthony Anderson, Mike Tyson, Queen Latifah, and Spike Lee in attendance. One who was not, though, is Beyoncé… but that didn’t stop some commentators on television and Twitter from believing she was.

As it turned out, the reason for the confusion was actress Laverne Cox, who multiple broadcasts confused for the Renaissance singer. To be fair, Cox was — who actually previously worked with Beyoncé — wearing a mask and has been known to wear similarly-colored tresses to Queen Bey. That didn’t stop those who could tell the difference from correcting those who couldn’t in the most hilarious ways.

Although Beyoncé wasn’t in attendance in person, she was in spirit, as the US Open broadcast of the match opened with a tribute video to Serena featuring Beyoncé’s song “I Was Here.” Beyoncé also recently narrated a Gatorade ad detailing Williams’ accomplishments on and off the court. The singer previously contributed the song “Be Alive” to the biopic about Williams’ father, King Richard, performing the song from the Compton tennis courts where Williams got her start to open the 2022 Oscars.

Cox, meanwhile, enjoyed the attention, posting a compilation of the mistaken identity tweets on Instagram with the caption “not me getting mistaken for @Beyonce at the #USOpen tonight then trending on Twitter as the internet cackles over the mistaken identity. These tweets are funny as hell. Enjoy!!!”

Serena Williams plays her second match tomorrow (August 31) at 7 pm ET / 4 pm PT against Anett Kontaveit.

Despite what Tom Cruise wants you to think, people aren’t really going to the movies that much this summer. Yes, Top Gun reinstated the love of going to a dark room with a bunch of strangers and sitting in seats that smell like melted butter, but the novelty of going back to theaters might have worn off for anyone looking to watch an original story.

Just last week, movie theaters across the country were basically desolate when the domestic box office grossed just $52.7 million, which is the lowest in months, according to ComScore. In order to create some momentum during the holiday weekend, movie theaters have been bringing back classics like Jaws and ET for the late-summer lull, and the next classic film is…..2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home.

The Marvel “classic” will be returning to theaters just eight months after it left, but it seems like a much-needed push for movie theaters. The movie, which already grossed $1.9 billion around the world, will return to over 3,000 theaters this weekend, with an extra 11 minutes of footage. Considering that last week’s number one box office hit, Sony’s The Invitation, barely crossed the $7 million mark, it’s likely that Peter Parker and Co will snag the top spot once more.

In case you didn’t know, National Cinema Day is this Saturday, September 3rd, and many North American cinemas will be offering drastic discounts for anyone who wants to spend their holiday weekend in a movie theater. Big chains like Regal and AMC are offering majorly discounted tickets in order to get those seats filled. Maybe the teens seeing Rise Of Gru were onto something after all.